Paddington: Communications

COMMUNICATIONS.

Roman roads formed the parish's north-eastern and southern boundaries from Marble Arch: Watling Street, later Edgware Road, and the Uxbridge road, (fn. 1) whose length to Notting Hill Gate was known by the 1860s as Bayswater Road. (fn. 2) In the early 19th century, when both roads were coming to be built up, houses were often described as lying only in a particular stretch, such as Maida Vale and Maida Hill in Edgware Road or Hyde Park Place, Uxbridge Place, and Bayswater Terrace in the Uxbridge road. (fn. 3)

Failure to repair the highway and scour the ditches from Tyburn to Kilburn bridge led to indictments of the abbot of Westminster between 1422 and 1440. (fn. 4) The Uxbridge road was noted for robberies in the 18th century, when a wall screened travellers from Hyde Park and Kensington Gardens, and was in very bad repair in 1807, although soon afterwards it was improved. It was administered from 1714 by the Uxbridge turnpike trust, while Edgware Road from 1721 was in the charge of the St. Marylebone turnpike trust. (fn. 5) The parish paid annual sums in composition by 1738 to the St. Marylebone turnpike trustees and later to the Uxbridge trustees, (fn. 6) both bodies being superseded from 1827 by the metropolis turnpike roads commissioners. A gate and toll house of the St. Marylebone trust, previously at the Oxford Street corner of Park Lane, moved to the Paddington angle between the Uxbridge and Edgware roads after the dismantling of the permanent Tyburn gallows in 1759. Gates barred both main roads c. 1790, when they were sketched by Paul Sandby, but the Edgware Road gate had been moved northward by 1794 and the Uxbridge road gate, with the tollhouse, was given up in 1829. Other gates, which changed in number and position, included one in Edgware Road at Chapel Street in 1799 and the earlier Bayswater gate in the Uxbridge road, east of the Serpentine, which was also sketched by Sandby and survived until 1834, leaving Notting Hill gate as the first out of London. The spread of housing necessitated the placing of many bars across side roads, which were increasingly resented until their abolition under the Metropolis Roads Amendment Act, 1863. (fn. 7)

The only way westward across the centre of the parish until the 19th century was a forerunner of the modern Harrow Road, (fn. 8) leading from Edgware Road past Paddington green, thence turning north-west and west to cross the stream to Westbourne green, and continuing north-westward to Chelsea detached, Willesden, and Harrow. A charity for repairs was set up by John Lyon in 1582 but the income was withheld by Harrow school on the establishment in 1801 of Harrow Road turnpike trust, to which Paddington paid annual sums in composition. (fn. 9) The Paddington branch of the Grand Junction canal, opened in that year, (fn. 10) passed under the road near the later Little Venice, where the road was shifted slightly to the north, (fn. 11) and also farther west, north of Westbourne green. Under an Act of 1826 (fn. 12) the turnpike trustees conveyed the eastern stretch of Harrow Road, from Edgware Road to the first canal bridge, to Paddington parish, which was to receive some of the income from Lyon's charity. With the parish's agreement, (fn. 13) the stretch between the bridges was conveyed by the metropolitan turnpike roads commissioners to the G.W.R. Co. under an Act of 1837, (fn. 14) and was then realigned a little to the north, the work being finished in 1841. A turnpike gate stood at Westbourne green, (fn. 15) where a lane ran south to the Uxbridge road, until the realignment; after three moves, the gate survived slightly west of the junction with Great Western Road until the 1860s. Widening of a 700-ft. stretch of Harrow Road at the corner of Edgware Road was completed in 1877. Extending into Willesden, Harrow Road was thought in the 1960s to be the longest road in London to have its buildings numbered consecutively throughout. (fn. 16)

Harrow Road and Westbourne green were connected with the Uxbridge road and Bayswater by Westbourne Green Lane, (fn. 17) so called in the mid 18th century (fn. 18) and probably the Westbourne Lane recorded in 1360. (fn. 19) It was known as Black Lion Lane by 1767 (fn. 20) and in the early 19th century, when parishioners objected to a toll bar maintained by the metropolitan turnpike roads commissioners at its junction with the Uxbridge road. (fn. 21) A small part near Westbourne green had been built up as Pickering Place by 1828, when its houses backed on another row called Pickering Terrace, which in 1876 was renamed as part of Porchester Road. (fn. 22) The southern stretch of Black Lion Lane by 1840 was called Queen's Road, a name extended c. 1911 to cover Pickering Place and changed from the beginning of 1938 to Queensway. (fn. 23)

There was a Green Lane near Westbourne green in 1548, (fn. 24) presumably the one which in 1591 was to have a stile built at its end. (fn. 25) In the 1740s a lane ran west from Westbourne green, in the direction later taken by Westbourne Park Road, and zigzagged north-westward to join Harrow Road at the modern junction with Great Western Road. (fn. 26) After the lane had been severed by the Grand Junction canal, over which it had no bridge, the northernmost stretch disappeared while the rest, although described as Green Lane in 1864, (fn. 27) fell into disuse. Another Green Lane, so named in 1746, ran northward from Harrow Road into fields, north-west of Paddington green, along the line of Warwick Avenue, but had vanished by the early 19th century.

Among footpaths was one running eastward from the southern end of Westbourne green across Bayswater rivulet to Paddington green in 1746. It was stopped by the canal in 1801 to the anger of the vestry, which insisted that the canal company's road bridge lay too far to the north and in 1803 secured a new footbridge on the original route. (fn. 28) The path was called Bishop's Walk in 1828. The eastern end of the path crossed the canal and land acquired for the depot and lines of the G.W.R. Co., which in 1837 undertook to construct a road, including a viaduct over the railway and a bridge over the canal. (fn. 29) The new way was called the Bishop's Road, from 1938 renamed Bishop's Bridge Road. (fn. 30)

Apart from the roads mentioned above, there were only short local lanes around Paddington green, Westbourne green, and Bayswater until the building up of the bishop of London's estate in the early 19th century. Building began in the south-east corner of the parish, where a grid pattern of roads formed Tyburnia. The grid's axis was Grand Junction Street (later Sussex Gardens), which ran northeastward and enabled traffic from the Uxbridge road to avoid Oxford Street by cutting across to Edgware Road and the 18th-century New Road (later Marylebone Road). (fn. 31) By 1886 building had produced many long straight north-south roads across Bayswater and some still longer avenues were being laid out farther north, in Maida Vale. None, however, was intended as more than a shopping or residential street. The only modern main road consisted of the Marylebone flyover across Edgware Road, opened in 1967, and the elevated Westway, opened in 1970. Together they linked Marylebone Road with Western Avenue, the eastern end of the new route running parallel with that of a straightened Harrow Road past the south side of Paddington green. (fn. 32)

The Westbourne or Bayswater rivulet was crossed by Edgware Road at Kilburn bridge and, on leaving the parish, by the Uxbridge road at Bayswater bridge. (fn. 33) Kilburn bridge, supposedly built in the mid 13th century by a prior of Kilburn, in 1826 consisted of a single medieval stone arch which had been widened in brick on either side. The bishop of London, as lord of the manor, had been charged with one quarter of its repairs in 1647 (fn. 34) but by 1826 its south side was repaired by the St. Marylebone turnpike trust and its north side by the Kilburn Road trust. Bayswater bridge, a single arch of brick, was considered the responsibility of the bishop in 1826, although he had been charged with only half the upkeep in 1647 and the parish had repaired it in 1746. (fn. 35) The bishop's lessee in 1753 agreed to pay 20s. a year towards its upkeep and in 1762 compounded with the Uxbridge road turnpike trustees, who rebuilt it in 1824. The only ancient road bridge wholly within Paddington was Westbourne bridge, mentioned in 1402, (fn. 36) where the rivulet was crossed by Harrow Road east of Westbourne green. Bridge field, to the south-west, was so named by 1530. (fn. 37) In 1826 the bridge was a single arch of brick, supposedly built and, as in 1647, repaired by the bishop, although in 1819 its upkeep had been the subject of negotiations between the parish and the Harrow Road trustees. (fn. 38) A little to the south Bishop's Walk was provided in 1817 with a footbridge, for which the vestry was summoned by the court of sewers but which was allowed to remain until replaced by the G.W.R. Co. (fn. 39)

In 1795, while work was proceeding on its canal from Brentford to Braunston (Northants.), the Grand Junction Canal Co. was empowered to construct an easterly cut from Bull's bridge in Norwood to Paddington. (fn. 40) Some 48 a. were leased in 1798 from the bishop and his lessees (fn. 41) and in 1801 the Paddington branch of the Grand Junction canal was opened. Entering the parish slightly south of Harrow Road, the canal was built mainly on a raised embankment. It passed under the road at the northern end of Westbourne green and again at the south end of a pool at the later Little Venice north-west of Paddington green, terminating in a basin south of Harrow Road's junction with Edgware Road. The Harrow Road bridge south of the pool and the Lock bridge, together with a wooden footbridge for Bishop's Walk, were built and in 1826 maintained by the company. (fn. 42) There followed the later Westbourne Terrace Road bridge immediately west of the pool, known also as the weighbridge because tolls for barges were collected near by, and the G.W.R. Co.'s Bishop's Road bridge of c. 1838. After housing had spread north-westward the Great Western Road or Carlton bridge was built at the expense of the M.B.W., the vestry, and private subscribers c. 1870. Footbridges built by the canal company at the western end of Delamere Terrace and, in Chelsea detached, at Wedlake Street were taken over by the M.B.W. and in 1885 conveyed to the vestries. Paddington metropolitan borough had ten canal bridges, including footbridges and crossings of the Regent's canal, in 1928. (fn. 43)

The Regent's canal, passing north of London to the Thames at Limehouse, was authorized in 1812, despite parochial objections. (fn. 44) From a pumping station at Little Venice it headed north-east to a tunnel under Edgware Road at Maida Hill, a bridge being built by the Regent's Canal Co. across the canal's western end at what became Warwick Avenue. The first section, from Paddington to Camden Town, was opened in 1816. Running at first mainly through fields, (fn. 45) the canals confirmed a division between the northern and southern parts of the parish already marked by Harrow Road and later reinforced by the railway.

The Paddington canal, although built mainly for goods, was used also by passengers. The pool at Little Venice was intended from the start for pleasure boats. (fn. 46) Transport to Uxbridge was provided at first by the canal company and then by its lessees, while a private service ran from Paddington to Buckingham. Troops for Liverpool were carried on the canal in 1806 and again in 1822, although regular passenger services ceased c. 1810. (fn. 47) Later traffic was limited mostly to the summer months and presumably consisted of pleasure trips, as in 1820 when refreshments were offered on a daily passage boat to Greenford and Uxbridge. (fn. 48) Cheap summer excursions were increasingly popular in 1853 (fn. 49) and those along the Regent's canal to Camden Town were said to be quicker than road transport. (fn. 50) Other boats occasionally operated throughout the year, conveying both passengers and parcels in 1831. (fn. 51)

Summer excursions by former working narrow boat from Little Venice to Camden Town were started by John James in 1951. The trips, with occasional westward excursions to Harlesden, continued in 1983, by which date the British Waterways Board had opened a service from Little Venice to the Zoo. (fn. 52) A canalside walk from Harrow Road to Great Western Road, the first Paddington section of one from Primrose Hill to Ladbroke Grove, was opened in 1972. (fn. 53) There was also a walkway along part of the south side of the canal basin by 1985. It was then planned to extend the walk around the 3-a. basin, which was to be used for water sports and as a London terminus for leisure boats. (fn. 54)

Paddington has figured prominently in the history of public transport, partly because the New Road through Marylebone was a quick route to the City and partly because the rapid spread of housing on the bishop's estate and around the canal basin in the early 19th century created a demand. (fn. 55) In 1780 hired hackney coaches were apparently the only means of conveying passengers from London but by 1798 a coach left Newgate Street for Paddington three times a day, as did another from Fore Street. (fn. 56) Twenty short-stage coaches left the City for Paddington daily in 1817, 12 of them from the Mansion House, (fn. 57) and 54 short stages provided 158 return journeys, far more than to any other single destination, in 1825. (fn. 58)

In 1829 George Shillibeer (1797-1866), (fn. 59) 'patron saint of the London omnibus', (fn. 60) inaugurated four services daily along the New Road to the Bank. His omnibus, running from Paddington green, (fn. 61) soon faced competition until in 1831 operators jointly agreed to limit themselves to 57 vehicles, providing a three-minute service. In 1832, from a headquarters in St. Alban's Place on the Paddington side of Edgware Road, Shillibeer also started a service along Oxford Street to the Bank. (fn. 62) Paddington vestry was concerned at obstruction by omnibuses in Edgware Road, particularly outside the Wheatsheaf at the corner of Church Street, where in 1833 there were often 8 or 10 vehicles, whose drivers' rowdy behaviour was said to threaten property values. (fn. 63) Omnibuses largely replaced short-stage coaches during the 1830s and, although Shillibeer soon moved away, the two main routes from Paddington to the Bank remained London's busiest in 1838-9: 55 vehicles were then licensed for the New Road and for Oxford Street with a further 13 serving an extension to Maida Hill. The largest firm was Richard Blore & Co., which controlled the London Conveyance Co. with its office in St. Alban's Place. (fn. 64) A service from Paddington to Charing Cross, with cheap fares for short distances, started in 1846. After the Great Exhibition of 1851 had left a surplus capacity, cheap fares were offered on several routes, beginning with one from Bayswater to Tottenham Court Road. (fn. 65) In 1856 most vehicles were acquired by the Compagnie Générale des Omnibus de Londres, (fn. 66) re-registered in 1858 as the London General Omnibus Co. (L.G.O.C.), which had a provender depot at Irongate wharf. (fn. 67) The large number of east-west routes soon gave rise to a joke about French visitors who imagined that all Londoners went home at night to Bayswater. (fn. 68)

A steam coach was introduced by Walter Hancock's London and Paddington Steam Carriage Co. along the New Road in 1833. One vehicle, the abortive forerunner of the motor omnibus, ran in the summers of 1833 and 1834 and three larger coaches, with no greater success, in 1836. (fn. 69) London's first horse tramway, a single track of c. 1 mile along the Uxbridge road to Porchester Terrace, was opened by G. F. Train's Marble Arch Street Rail Car Co. in 1861. The line, which had been temporarily approved by the metropolis turnpike roads commissioners but opposed by Paddington vestry, was closed after six months. Trams provoked resentment in a fashionable area and the raised part of their rails proved an obstruction to other wheeled traffic; (fn. 70) no tramways were later laid along either Edgware or Bayswater roads.

The Harrow Road and Paddington Tramways Co., established in 1886, opened a 2½-mile track along Harrow Road from Amberley Road to Harlesden in 1888. A northward branch along Chippenham Road to Carlton Vale was abandoned in 1894, although an annual trip with a horse-car was made until 1910, in order to keep the powers alive. (fn. 71) The company's line, unconnected with any other route in 1895, was bought in 1902 by the Metropolitan Electric Tramways Co., a subsidiary of the British Electric Traction Co. Electric trams from Harlesden were introduced in 1906 and extended along Harrow Road to a terminus at Edgware Road in 1910. (fn. 72)

Omnibuses, numbering 87 an hour in Harrow Road c. 1904, provided a more comprehensive service than trams. In 1911 the L.G.O.C.'s motorbuses ran straight along Edgware Road to Dollis Hill and Cricklewood. Others turned westward off Edgware Road along Clifton Gardens and Shirland Road, along Harrow Road, and along Praed Street and Westbourne Grove, while three routes led to Shepherd's Bush or beyond along Bayswater Road. (fn. 73) All parts of Paddington were served by 1913. (fn. 74) The London Passenger Transport Board, responsible for trams and motorbuses from 1933, replaced the trams in Harrow Road with trolleybuses in 1936. (fn. 75) The trolleybuses, which ran to a turning circle at Paddington green rather than to Edgware Road, were in turn replaced by motorbuses in 1961-2. (fn. 76) London Transport Executive's Westbourne Park Bus Garage, opposite the railway station, was opened in 1981. Designed to hold 110 buses and with a four-storeyed operations block faced with red brick, it replaced garages in North Kensington and Willesden. (fn. 77)

The Great Western Railway Co. was authorized by its Act of incorporation in 1835 to build a rail link between London and Bristol. (fn. 78) Broad gauge tracks, which necessitated a separate London terminus, were adopted at the insistence of the company's engineer I. K. Brunei. By agreement with the bishop and his lessees, work began on the easternmost stretch from Acton to Paddington, running through clay cuttings south of the canal, in 1836, although the eastern end and terminus were delayed until an Act of 1837 permitted the alteration of public roads. (fn. 79) To avoid delay, a temporary station was built on land intended for a goods depot and was opened in 1838 for journeys as far as Maidenhead (Berks.), trains running through to Reading from 1840 and to Bristol from 1841. (fn. 80)

The first Paddington station was approached by London Street, which ran northward from Praed Street and Tyburnia. The front was formed by the new Bishop's Road viaduct, some of whose arches were used for halls, offices, and access ways. The rest of the structure was mainly timber, containing one platform for arrivals and another for departures, to take c. 12 trains a day. Queen Victoria made her first railway journey, from Slough to Paddington, in 1842, and the station had been enlarged to have five platforms, with a carriage shed at the outer end and an engine shed and workshops beyond, by 1845. (fn. 81) Compared with other London termini, it was considered both unsightly and inconvenient in 1851. (fn. 82)

A second, permanent, terminus was authorized in 1850, on land to the south-east (fn. 83) which had already been taken for the wooden buildings of the goods station. Its opening in 1854 was following by the completion of new engine sheds at Westbourne Park in 1855, whereupon the remains of the first station made way for a depot, as originally planned. The permanent station was designed by Brunei, with ornamental details devised by Matthew Digby Wyatt and a colour scheme by Owen Jones. (fn. 84) The main building ran along Spring Street (later Eastbourne Terrace), where it was served by a cab route, and was extended southward towards the hotel in 1881 and given an extra storey c. 20 years later. Behind it were 3 parallel roofs of wrought iron and glass, on cast iron columns, interrupted in two places by 'transepts', covering 3 arrival and 3 departure platforms and 5 sidings. The inner platforms formed islands, reached by retractable drawbridges, the space by the track ends being used for turnplates and later for mails. (fn. 85) Many changes, including the addition of more platforms, were carried out under Brunei s roof in the 1870s and 1880s, with the removal of carriage sidings and the gradual abandonment of broad gauge track. Enlargements from 1906 involved extension of the roof, in the original style, and of the platforms. (fn. 86) By 1921 c. 300 trains arrived and left every day. (fn. 87) Another major rebuilding, begun in 1930, (fn. 88) led to the absorption of the adjoining suburban station at Bishop's Road (fn. 89) and the creation of the modern concourse at the south end of the terminus, flanked by administrative blocks completed in 1933 to the design of P. G. Culverhouse. (fn. 90) The last scheduled passenger steam train left Paddington in 1965 and extensive track and signal modernization took place in 1967. (fn. 91)

Brunel saw his station as primarily an engineering work, 'admitting of no exterior'. (fn. 92) Inspired by a forerur ner at Munich and by the Crystal Palace, it had one of England's first large station roofs in metal, spanning an area 700 ft. by 238 ft. and at the height of its curves reaching 55 ft. above the platforms. (fn. 93) The light and elegant interior became well known from W. P. Frith's 'Paddington Station', painted in 1862. As the G.W.R. served Windsor, an apartment for the queen was designed near platform 1. (fn. 94) The station was lit experimentally in 1880 by the Anglo-American Brush Electric Light Corporation and in 1886 by a more lasting system from generators near Westbourne railway bridge, hailed as the first attempt to supply large-scale electric lighting as a rival to gas. (fn. 95) Royal patronage, literary references, (fn. 96) and associations with long-distance travel to the west country rather than with suburban commuting, (fn. 97) earned Paddington a romantic, aristocratic reputation. (fn. 98) Paddington was also popular with railway enthusiasts as the last home of broad gauge express trains, which finally ceased to run in 1892. (fn. 99) In the 20th century the building, 'an aisled cathedral in a railway cutting', (fn. 100) has probably received more praise from architectural writers than any rival terminus. (fn. 101)

A hotel for travellers, the Prince of Wales, was opened near the temporary station before 1850. Its success induced a group of G.W.R. Co. shareholders and officials to build the Great Western (later the Great Western Royal) hotel at the southern end of the second station, where it masked the train sheds. Well publicized when it opened in 1854 as London's largest and most sumptuous hotel, it was managed directly by the G.W.R. from 1896 (fn. 102) and became the headquarters of the company's catering department. (fn. 103) The building was mainly the work of C. P. Hardwick, although nominally that of his father Philip. (fn. 104) A stucco-fronted block of 5 storeys with 7storeyed corner towers, it is perhaps the earliest Victorian example of the influence of French Renaissance and Baroque, notably in the lines of the roof; a central pediment contains allegorical figures by John Thomas. (fn. 105) Later additions and alterations had raised the number of bedrooms from 103 to 250 by 1936, when a low wing behind the hotel linked the new office blocks on either side of the station's concourse. Changes in 1936-8 included a new entrance canopy and external refacing. (fn. 106)

The G.W.R. Co., with its broad gauge, did not at first contemplate links with suburban lines. Its local traffic was comparatively light, until the 20th-century building up of outer Middlesex and south Buckinghamshire: as late as 1903 only 8 suburban trains arrived daily at Paddington, compared with 136 at Liverpool Street. (fn. 107) The company, however, subscribed to the North Metroplitan Railway Co., reincorporated in 1854 as the Metropolitan, for a mixed broad and standard gauge line which was opened in 1863 from Farringdon Street to a station built slightly north-west of the main line terminus and called Bishop's Road. A 15-minute service was worked briefly by the G.W.R., then by the Metropolitan with other companies' help, and from 1864 by the Metropolitan alone. A westward link from Bishop's Road to Hammersmith was provided from 1864 by the Hammersmith and City Railway Co., incorporated in 1861 to build a mixed gauge line which left the main G.W.R. line at Green Lane bridge, from 1866 the site of Westbourne Park station. That line too was worked at first by the G.W.R. and later by the Metropolitan, the two companies jointly acquiring control of the Hammersmith and City line in 1867. Under an Act of 1869, regulating arrangements with the Metropolitan, the G.W.R. laid extra track from Paddington to Westbourne Park. In 1871 it rebuilt the wooden Westbourne Park station and opened Royal Oak station. Suburban trains thus no longer had to use the main line, although they continued to cross it until a subway was built between Royal Oak and Westbourne Park in 1878. Electric traction was introduced in 1906. Bishop's Road station, built in the G.W.R.'s French Renaissance style, was linked by a footbridge to the main line terminus c. 1878. After enlargements, the name was abandoned and the platforms were renumbered in 1933 as part of Paddington station. (fn. 108)

The parish's first Underground railway was that of the Metropolitan, whose forerunner, the North Metropolitan, had originally been called the Bayswater, Paddington, and Holborn Bridge Railway Co. The first plans, to bring the line as far as Westbourne Terrace, had been altered to provide for a terminus on the Marylebone side of Edgware Road, to placate Paddington vestry. (fn. 109) Later, however, it was decided to continue west along Praed Street to a station of that name in front of the G.W.R. terminus and to join the main line itself by a north-westward branch under South Wharf Road to Bishop's Road. Trains from Farringdon Street started in 1863 and were to be extended westward to South Kensington, under an Act of 1864, as part of an 'inner circuit'. Work proved expensive because of compensation to property owners and included the building of a well known pair of false house fronts in Leinster Gardens, where the line passed under the road. The stretch from Praed Street junction through Bayswater to Gloucester Road was opened in 1868. (fn. 110) On the completion of the 'circle' line in 1884, trains at first were run alternately by its two owners, the Metropolitan and the Metropolitan District or District railway companies. Later District trains ran on the inner rail and Metropolitan trains, clockwise, on the outer rail. Electric trains were introduced in 1905 by the Metropolitan, which soon afterwards took over the sole working of the 'Inner Circle'. (fn. 111) A subway between Praed Street and the terminus was built only in 1887. (fn. 112) Praed Street station was renamed Paddington in 1948 and Bayswater was called Bayswater (Queen's Road) for Westbourne Grove from 1922 until 1933. (fn. 113) Their design has been attributed to the Metropolitan's engineer John Fowler (later a baronet), whose white-brick stations, in a vaguely Italian Renaissance style, survived with minor alterations in 1986. (fn. 114)

Along the southern edge of the parish a tube railway, from the Bank to Shepherd's Bush, was opened by the Central London Railway Co. in 1900. There were stations at Marble Arch, on the Marylebone side of Edgware Road, at Lancaster Gate, and at Queen's Road, which was renamed Queensway in 1946, by which time the railway was part of the L.P.T.B.'s Central line. (fn. 115) Lancaster Gate station was rebuilt beneath the Royal Lancaster hotel in the 1960s, but Queensway has remained a little altered example of the original stations designed by H. B. Measures. (fn. 116)

A link with south London was provided by the Baker Street and Waterloo Railway Co., early nicknamed the Bakerloo, whose tube reached Great Central (later Marylebone) and Edgware Road stations in 1907. The company was absorbed by the London Electric Railway Co. in 1910. (fn. 117) Enticed westward by the G.W.R. Co., the tube was extended to Paddington in 1913 and headed north-westward through the parish, with stations at Warwick Avenue and Maida Vale, to reach Queen's Park in Willesden by 1915. Its trains were running to Watford, on tracks of the London and North Western Railway, by 1917. (fn. 118) The Bakerloo's only surface station in Paddington, Maida Vale, survived in 1986 with its facing of glazed red bricks in the style of Leslie Green. (fn. 119)

Under the Post Office (London) Railway Act, 1913, (fn. 120) a tube line for the carriage of mails was opened to a western terminus beneath Paddington main line station in 1927. (fn. 121)